Month: March, 2010

Shafqat Amanat Ali Khan is one of the finest mainstream singers Pakistan has produced.Pity then that he isn’t patronised as much as his contemporaries like Atif Aslam and Rahat Fateh Ali Khan in India.

Kyun Dooriyan is numinous and breezy in tone,tenor,texture and finish.Shafqat glides over the lyrics- a curious blend of urbane sufi and rank downtown Bollywood stuff-alternating fluidly between melancholy(title song,Jayein Kahan) and mischief(Naal Naal) besides dabbling in consecrated requiems.Pleasure.

Striker

Its funny how I failed to comment on this one for this is some zany mix of songs(Kudos Siddharth) which explode much like the eclectic collusion of tangy bhel- puri flavours.But like the snack itself it is soggy(like the sluggish Haq Se) and awkward(Bombay) at times.Vishal’s tasteful Yun Hua though takes the cake…sorry garnishing.Ajab Teri is sauteed and liberally tossed over spiritual embers.It is also an unusually racy listen.The ingratiating Cham Cham,though a touch turgid and cloying,rounds off the OST well.

Prince

Here is one OST that doesn’t believe in half measures(Pardon my Ravi Shashtri’esque mutterings).Its almost achieves what it sets out to seek as well-to dish out a wholesome,hard core commercial soundtrack that is puch drunk on adrenaline,razzmatazz,schmaltz…whatnot.Sadly,it is a snooze,as well.Funny really,because that was not what I was expecting.But,oh well,I should have known better.Atleast after seeing ‘Sameer’ emblazoned prominently on the cover.Atleast after coming to know that this was being produced by some TIPSy guys who had also bankrolled that amazingly stupid movie called Race.Barring O Mere Khuda and its slower twin,Prince is painfully schlocky.The lyrical landscape is dotted by Sameer’s unabashedly cliched verses.The music,on the other hand,lacks novelty-its a cruel mix of blaring electric guitar coupled with incessant technobaazi and little innovation-and sounds fatigued and tiresome.At times even the usually dependable and engaging Atif gets irritatingly monochromatic.Too much of anything,they rightly said,is bad.

Seriously,Meyer must restrain himself from foraging from his earlier tunes that composed on a happy day.The material that he rustles up here plays out under the nagging overhang of being repetitive.The songs are turning out to be litanies.Meyer’s nimbleness at piecing together a mellow,balmy score is still intact-the sound here too is pleasant and pleasing,at the same time-but his tunes continue to remain suspect.They are flat,dismal and unimaginative.

The best song on offer here,Prema Prema,is nothing but a pale distillation from some of his earlier concoctions.However,the two ‘re-creations’ stand out for faithfully warding off any suggestions of bequeathing from the originals.Ye Teega Puvvuno appears to have been painstakingly varnished with that luxuriant orchestration but the song begins to unravel as soon as Swetha Pandit’s etiolated,distant vocals start filtering in.On the other hand,Bale Bale Mogadivoy lands a trendy renovation;something on the lines of Latoo(Ghajini).It is not entirely convincing but is nevertheless entertaining.The evenpacedness of the song,though,gets to it in the end.It also lacks the fizz of the original.